Cherries and nutella.
Yum.
Archive for the 'observations of food' Category
I went out for lunch today, because life got in the way of going to the grocery store this weekend and, unfortunately, hunger stops for no one, not even two weddings and monsoon-like downpouring of water (and the subsequent flooding that keeps people from getting home in a timely manner from said weddings).
And I must tell you, I’ve been fleeced. I knew the restaurant I chose was expensive, but I thought that, surely, a salad would not be terrible. After all, the components, while not as cheap as they once were, still are not very expensive and pound-for-pound, are much less expensive than other options.
$8.50 later, I am a little annoyed. $8.50 paid for a half a tomato, two tablespoons of cheese, a quarter of a shredded carrot, a half a chicken breast, one crumbled strip of bacon, 1/4 head of lettuce, and 1/4 cup of dressing.
I don’t have solid figures to break this down for you, but I know I could have purchased enough raw materials to make at least 3-4 salads for that same price. From a boutique health food store.
Can you tell I’m annoyed? I’m going to the grocery tonight, and will probably buy these same components to have this same salad again later this week. And I’ll be able to eat 4 times for the amount of money it cost to eat just my lunch today.
Keep this perspective when you think about that dinner from Applebee’s or Friday’s you might order tonight.
—
So, Joseph from Louisville sent me an email asking me where I’ve been.
I’ve been horrible about writing for the last two months, but here’s why:
- I’ve been extremely busy between work and personal commitments, and
- I’m not immune to food price inflation, which leads to
- I haven’t been cooking very much.
- However, the item in number 2 some how hasn’t stopped me from going out to eat, which probably results from the item in number 1.
- I also didn’t realize that I had enough of a fan following that someone would actually miss me (Thank you, Joseph!)
So, in short, I’ve been eating, but I haven’t been cooking very much. I do have a recipe I should share with you, and several food places to write about. And, now that I’m aware someone is paying attention, maybe that’ll light enough of a fire to post more frequently. Don’t expect a new recipe every day (when I started out, I didn’t realize how expensive, in both time and money, that kind of commitment would take), but I’ll make it a stated goal to do this at least once a week going forward.
I work in a profession that is notorious for not keeping regular hours. Fortunately, I seem to do pretty well when it comes to managing my time, so I can usually come home and relax a little before going to bed. But that doesn’t mean that I get the joy of exercising my passion frequently because I come home late, or when I get home I’m so mentally drained that just want to veg out (dear readers, that’s what happened a few months ago when I stopped writing every day–but that’s a different post).
So, sometimes we just go out to eat. But, let me tell you just how expensive that can get. In February we spent nearly $800 on food between groceries and dining out. It was about 50-50 because we hosted a SuperBowl party, otherwise dining out would have killed groceries. March was a little better, but only because we had to exercise some restraint to pay for some of the largesse of February (we bought computers and booked vacation, as well as spent a million dollars on food). This is what prompted me to post about recreating a favorite salad at home.
Other times, we simply buy convenience foods and make something “semi-homemade.” We’ve been doing that a lot this week–Stacie learned how to make a really good pizza dough, but it takes about an hour and a half, which means if we both get home around 5:30, we’re not eating until 7 or later. So, we bought two pizza crusts and a jar of sauce, with some cheese. Cost us about 8 dollars, and we should have gotten 8 meals (2 people, 4 meals each) out of this, and saved us at least an hour and a half (I’m not factoring the time spend making a good sauce, though, which may add more time).
And, on the far end, we just make everything from scratch. This is probably the cheapest option–I spent as much on a bag of flour as I did on the pizza crusts, and I could make 30 or 40 crusts from that flour–but it’s also the most expensive in terms of time. There have been days where I’ve spent hours in the kitchen–first, because I love it, and second, because I needed to between making sauces, baking bread, or whatever, something needed my attention.
Thinking about this makes me realize why cookbooks emphasizing 30 minute meals are so popular–not very many people have the money to go out every night, and not very many people have the time to indulge in a large cooking expedition every night. Furthermore, it seems that the American palate has been conditioned to expect “Wow!” at every meal, or at least something better than bologna and cheese. So, we compromise on cost and time and opt for quick fix dinners. Have you thought about this lately? Is this healthy? Do you really need to have vodka cream pasta each night, or would a simple sandwich with a simple salad suffice?
I’m guessing so, but we don’t want it to suffice. At least we–well, some of us–aren’t eating out at every turn, wasting even more money to save time.
Last month, I wrote about two start-ups in Bloomington where the fare is all dough, the whole dough, and nothing but the dough… Cookie dough, that is. Or, more precisely, just warm, ooey-gooey, perfect-when-dunked-in-milk cookies.
Over the weekend, my wife and I had the opportunity to drop in on Baked! (blog) with one of our friends. I’d like to be classy and say that we stopped in during the day, but the truth is we were coming from a party at around 11:00 Saturday night. I can say, however, that we were of the right state of mind (no, sober, I promise), so at least we had some class ;).
Anyway, I don’t think any of us had been there, and it was within walking distance from the party we left. We actually passed the other place (the chain, Insomnia), but didn’t go in because we wanted to check out the local place… It seemed Insomnia was a drag, though, because no one was there. Contrast that to Baked, where people filled the front half, enjoying cookies, fussball, and “Rock Band” on an Xbox 360.
Upon walking in, we went to the counter and stared at the menu, completely befuddled (in case you didn’t know, my wife and I are horrible at actually making decisions, and faced with choice, we’re like a deer in headlights). That’s when a guy, who I can only assume to be the proprietor, came over to help us out (I only presume this because if he wasn’t the proprietor, he was definitely the guy in charge).
I’m sure I probably put the poor guy off a bit, because he asked if we needed help with the menu, to which I said “Well, surely we just follow the directions on the menu board… If it’s more complicated than that, we’re in trouble!”–the menu said “Step 1: pick your dough; Step 2: pick your mix-ins.” He quickly recovered when we asked him what he recommended, and he had suggested for our three very different palates.
My wife ordered peanut butter dough with semi-sweet chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and pretzels.
Our friend ordered sugar dough with toffee bar and macadamia nuts. They split a pint of chocolate milk
I ordered chocolate dough with dark chocolate chips and macadamia nuts, with a carton of soy milk.
We waited a while for our cookies, while admiring the pizza-box art on the walls. The one that got me was from the linguistic department. I can’t even reproduce it here, because it used phonetic symbols, spelling out (phonetically) “Linguistic students love to get Baked!” At some point, our friend commented on our wait, to which I reminded everyone (including myself) that most cookie recipes cook for 12-ish minutes.
Sure enough, about 12 minutes after we placed our order, our cookies came out, in a pizza box, all warm and ooey-gooey, and perfect-when-dunked-in-milk. They were absolutely delicious, and would have been especially perfect had we enjoyed a few libations that night… The night was still young, and our new friend mentioned he would be at work until 5 in the a.m., so I’m sure some late-night-revelers indulged after hours. Regardless, it was pretty darn good cookie!
In total, our tab came to about $14 for 9 cookies, a pint of milk, and a little more than a cup of soy milk… I can make a mean cookie, too, especially since I know the economics of how this works and why he can make money doing this. But for the occasional indulgence this place was great. And, you can’t beat the atmosphere and the friendly people. This guy is a student, to boot, so more power to him! I hope he experiences success beyond success in this venture; I think this is his last semester in school, too, so best of luck as he finishes his last four months!
If you’re in the area, I’d recommend you check it out. If not, maybe you can order some cookies from his website. He says he’s shooting for orders of about $40, but if your story is a good one, he may cut you a break… Maybe telling him that you found his site through the blog of a stranger will get you that break–of course, it might be lame, thereby jacking up the minimum order :).
I received an email a few days ago to this account, from someone at the bitchinkitchen.tv website. It didn’t quite look like spam, so I didn’t delete it right away, but figured I could have a look when I had some time.
So I took a look tonight. Of course, being this came from email, I typed the URL directly into my browser. I was pleasantly surprised, after being greeted with rich vibrant colors, and some interesting content. The site looks like it’s updated with recipes about once or twice a month, and is intended to be delivered on mobile media (notice the V-Cast ads on the left?). The rest of the content is random musings, some food related, some not.
I clicked on one of the videos for “Pissed Penne Arrabiata,” which is a 5 minute short on making Penne Arrabiata. I must say, it was very entertaining, but I didn’t see any real educational value there (i.e., there was no real recipe). Upon further examination, clicking on “Food/Drink” in the menu bar revealed the recipe. There are lots of good ideas, and some very clever recipe titles: “Bag ‘Em, Tag ‘Em French Toast,” “Deflate Your Mate Chickpeas,” and “Sex-Life Saving Shepherds Pie,” among others.
Doing some additional research, I came across this article, describing the advent and development of “Bitchin Kitchen.” Seems that it was, in fact, designed for the mobile web (score one for me!), and it was supposed to be a humorous take on foodie culture.
I enjoyed the site, a lot. Its recipes are interesting and the presentation is very entertaining. I don’t think this will become a regular-go-to-site for food or recipes–I would include this under “Just For Fun” in my blog reader–but for daily or weekly fun, this site has got it. Check out www.bitchinkitchen.tv the next time you need something interesting to look at!
Check out Scott’s new herb garden! What a neat idea. Too bad I don’t have a backyard that I can do this in. Pretty neat!
A few weeks ago, the local student newspaper had this article about two new food establishments in town. You’d think that a normal entrepreneur would do something standard, like burgers or steak. Not these folks–they chose to open up cookie shops.
One of these places is a local start up, and the other is a small corporation that has its roots at UPenn. What I think is really neat is that both places deliver and are open until the wee hours of the morning, so that the college kids who imbibed too much fire water can get their sugar and fat fix. I think this is pretty ingenious, if you ask me. The only hitch in the plan is these two restaurants are off the beaten path from the bars, and as we know, it’s all about locationlocationlocation.
I’ve not checked out either place. My wife and I were out that direction the other night and might have stopped in, but for the fact that Insomnia was closed at the time (it was 7 at night), and Baked was clear in the other direction for us. We won’t get our chance with Baked again for the next several weeks, as they are closing up for the Christmas break and won’t reopen until the New Year. I have heard, though, that a cookie place is nothing special. All I know is, I never thought such a business model would be economically viable. It just goes to show you anything is possible; all you need is a little tenacity and some vision, I suppose.
With that in mind, maybe I’ll start an salty-foods shop with my father-in-law, purveyor of all things brine-y? We’ll call it “Pickled.”
Erika, over a Kid Cuisine (part of the Well Fed Network–see the links section) just posted a recipe for Peanut Butter cookies which got me to thinking about my favorite Christmas cookies. I love sweets in the winter–there’s something particularly special about going to a friend’s or family member’s house and seeing the lavish spread of delicious sweets they’ve prepared (or had prepared) for you.
Apparently this is the norm in Scandinavian countries–my former boss told us a story yesterday about how her Norwegian mother-in-law would spend hours in the kitchen over the holidays. She’d spend this time preparing delectable goodies for those people who would frequent her home, and the spread would consist of several types of cookies and candy. Most contemporary folks now just stop by the bakery, because, as you can imagine, this is a time consuming process!
In the spirit of the holidays, I’m going to present to you a basic cookie dough recipe you can use for any kind of moderate sized, flat cookie. It’s basically a chocolate chip cookie dough, without the chips, and is easily customized.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound of butter or shortening, softened
- 3/4 cup of granulated, white sugar
- 3/4 cup of brown sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 to 2 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
- Up to 10 oz of your choice of fillings
Directions:
- Cream the butter/shortening and sugars in a large bowl.
- Add the eggs and vanilla extract to combine
- Combine the dry ingredients separately, then add them slowly to the creamed butter/sugar mixture.
- Stir to combine, but don’t over work the dough.
- If you add less flour, your dough will be looser, meaning your cookies will spread out in the over. If you want firmer dough (and cookies with less diameter), add more flour.
- Stir in your mix-ins.
- Set the dough aside, in the refrigerator, to chill for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 425.
- Take the dough out of the fridge and scoop it on to a baking sheet, leaving about 2 inches of space between the cookies.
- Bake for approximately 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are just beginning to turn golden.
- Cool on racks for about 20 minutes, and they are ready to eat. Cool longer if you plan on packaging them, to eliminate condensation.
This is a really simple recipe, and you probably won’t break the bank to make these. I would advise using only shortening or butter, though–margarine just don’t taste the same. Same with vanilla–use only the real stuff. A little really does go a long way.
Some variations: double chocolate chip (add 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder with the flour and chunked semi-sweet chocolate); Nutella chip (replace 1/4 cup of fat with 1/2 cup of Nutella spread and chunked simi-sweet chocolate; chopped hazelnuts optional).
What is your favorite holiday cookie recipe?
 |
| Source |
I just finished stuffing and licking 61 envelopes for Christmas cards. Well, to be fair, I had lots of help–my wife helped with about half of them. But let me tell you–envelope glue is some nasty! I need to have something, anything that will take the taste from my mouth. That will probably end up being a diet soda, in all truthfulness, but it could be many other things (I thought about having a small nightcap since it’s almost bed time, you know?).
Some things it will not be:
- Any kind of bleu cheese. I don’t like the smell or the taste. It’s like moldy socks to me. Yuck.
- Eggnog. Maybe I just haven’t had the right kind, but this has never hit my palate the right way.
- Veal. Okay, I’m just weird about this–I don’t eat it on principal, but I don’t mind the taste… It’s just… How can you kill a baby cow just to get tender meat?
- Malt liquor (a la Zima, or Smirnoff Ice). My liquor should not taste like Kool-aid, dammit!
- Hot tea with cream and sweetener. This ruins a good tea, in my opinion.
I’m sure this list could go on and on. There are just some things I will not consume (although, I will at least try things once, so I can say I don’t like them for certain).
What about you? What foods will you absolutely not eat? Why not?
I saw this post over at Serious Eats and thought it was very timely as I had the same kind of thought the other night.
Ed writes about a friend who serves frozen pigs in a blanket and Jeno’s pizza rolls at her parties. They are so bad for you, they’re good, so he eagerly awaits her party’s for at least this reason.
I had Chinese takeout the other night, which got me thinking about my own guilty pleasures. You see, I love American-Chinese food. The saltier and saucier, the better. One of my favorite things is crab-rangoon. I think it’s the combination of the crunchy shell and the creamy center that do me in. Add some (full-sodium) soy sauce and I’m in heaven for the 30 seconds I’m consuming the artery-clogging concoction.
I also really enjoy General Tso’s chicken, and now that I know how to make it at home I have no excuse for not enjoying it. I was surprise how easy it was and I’ll have to share with you some day.
Those are two of my guilty pleasures. What about yours?
